W: Snapshots
by Toa Karou
Summary: Oneshots: Snapshots of daily life at the Narumi Detective Agency. Chapter 5: Written for a prompt challenge on HPS. Philip learns the hard way why it's dangerous to answer the phone.
1. Philip: YaoiYuri

Finished in about 2 hours on a cold Saturday morning. Still is cold, though it's already afternoon.

**Disclaimer: If I owned Kamen Rider, I won't have to take 'O' Levels this year since I'm already filthy rich from all those Den-O movies.**

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It was another regular day at the Narumi Detective Agency. Shoutarou was dozing off on the sofa, Akiko was reading a doujinshi she had picked up at a convention and Philip was, well, being Philip. That is to say, he had locked himself in the hanger doing more research on common everyday topics.

After his arms started cramping up, a result of hours spent scribbling on vertical whiteboards, Philip finally decided to take a short break and went to join his partner and Akiko in the office.

As he slowly enjoyed his cup of hot Milo, he couldn't help but notice Akiko's occasional high-pitched squeals. Curiosity eventually got the better of him and he went over to find out what Akiko really was doing.

"Aki-chan, what are you reading?"

Akiko glanced and saw Philip's face merely inches away from hers. She gave a short yelp and tried to hide her doujinshi, blushing as she did so.

"It-it's nothing, Philip-kun. Go back to your research or something!"

Philip cocked his head to the side. Akiko was acting suspiciously.

"Just let me see that, I want to know what it is!" He tried to snatch the book away, but Akiko pushed him away with a kick.

Defeated, Philip dragged his feet in disappointment back to the table and continues to drink his Milo, pouting slightly as he stared into space.

Finally, Akiko gave in to the abandoned-puppy look Philip always gave when he wanted something badly and held out the doujinshi to him.

"Here."

Philip's face immediately lit up as he took the doujinshi and began to study its contents. It wasn't long before he started asking a few interesting questions.

"Aki-chan, what are they doing?"

Akiko looked at the panel he was pointing to and blushed, trying to appear innocent as she tried to look away. "Y-you're the guy with all the information in your head! Why don't you find out yourself?"

Philip brought his forefinger to his lips out of habit, before gulping down the rest of his drink and returning to the hanger. "Let me borrow this for a while, Aki-chan."

As he slammed the door behind him, Akiko paced around the office anxiously. "Ah, what am I going to tell Shoutarou-kun?"

After precisely 10 rounds of pacing around the office, Akiko finally decided to check on Philip.

**Later...**

Shoutarou yawned loudly and stretched like a cat as he came out of his wonderful dream. It wasn't often that he dreamt of being successful in reeling in a lady. He was reluctant to wake up, but there was a city to protect, he couldn't possibly spend his entire day sleeping. Not that there's much else to do anyway.

Nearby, Akiko was lying on the floor, staring at the rotating ceiling fan with a stunned expression and a small pile of tissue papers spotted in small amounts of blood. She had a small trickle of blood from her nose drying up.

"Oi Akiko, what are you doing on the floor?"

Without moving from her position on the dusty floor, Akiko lifted an arm to point at the door where Shoutarou's prized fedora hats hung.

"Hah? Philip?"

He sighed heavily before heading for the door to the hanger. He had a nagging feeling about this and frankly, this wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last.

Upon stepping inside the secret room, Shoutarou screamed comically.

"WHAT IS THAT!?"

Philip looked up from his book. "Oh Shoutarou, I bet you've never heard of yaoi!"

Surrounding him were whiteboards covered in notes about the topic and rather graphic drawings. A small corner of the nearest whiteboard wrote "Yuri =/= Yaoi". Much of the contents on the whiteboards were so graphic, Shoutarou found himself staring at the HardBoilder in utter embarrassment. He didn't even know some of the things proudly displayed on the whiteboards were possible.

'Is this kid even old enough to know about these things?' He thought in horror. He quickly dismissed the idea since Philip would completely abandon his research when he was done. But still, a single question begged to be answered. He cleared his throat to get the boy's attention.

"Oi Philip, why are you looking at this filth!? Who told you about yaoi?"

"But it's fascinating! I didn't know they have conventions dedicated to this subject! Maybe I can ask Akiko to take me to one of them..."

**Back in the main office...**

"AKIKO!!! Why did you tell Philip about yaoi!?"

"I didn't! He just snatched my doujinshi from me while I was reading!"

"Ah mou! What am I going to do now?" Shoutarou laid back on the sofa and covered his face with his hat, trying to fall back into blissful dreamland. If he were lucky, this would just another horrible nightmare.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

When Shoutarou got up reluctantly, he went back to check on his partner, hoping that they could go out for lunch without embarrassing themselves with Philip's ramblings. What he saw affected Shoutarou worse than before.

"You're into yuri now!?"

Philip turned to look at the detective and gave a firm nod with that berserk face of his. "It's even more fascinating than yaoi! The possibilities are almost endless in yuri!"

The graphic drawings and notes about yaoi had been replaced with even more graphic content of yuri. Shoutarou felt his face heating up. A blood vessel burst in his nose.

"Shoutarou? Are you alright? You're bleeding."

Shoutarou quickly wiped his nose with a piece of tissue Philip offered. After the bleeding stopped, he replied "I'm alright."

In actual fact, he was far from alright. Though he refused to admit it, Shoutarou was physically affected by the diagrams Philip had recreated so accurately. He hastily excused himself from the hanger and plopped himself on the same sofa, trying to erase what he had seen from his mind.

Akiko, drinking a cup of orange juice, looked at Shoutarou, who was currently venting his frustration on a cushion by screaming into it.

After Shoutarou finally calmed down, Akiko offered a cup of coffee she had brewed to the man in agony. He took it gratefully.

"He's researching yuri now?"

"Yeah."

As the 2 sat at the coffee table, they wearily drank their own coffee in silence. This was broken when Akiko spoke up again.

"Philip-kun still hasn't returned my doujinshi."


	2. W: April Fool's

I know, this is long overdue. Just roll with it

**Disclaimer: If I owned Kamen Rider, I won't be anxiously waiting for episode 29 right now.**

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It was yet another lazy afternoon at the Narumi Detective Agency. Akiko was out exploring Fuuto and Shoutarou was, as usual, sleeping on the sofa. Little could be said about what Philip was doing. Again.

Sidetracked while researching yet another everyday topic (poker cards), the teenager discovered a most curious human tradition. As he read on, the grin on his face grew until it threatened to wrap around his face.

**Later...**

Shoutarou was roughly shoved to the ground by a slim, smooth feminine hand. That same hand gently carassed his jaw as the owner of the hand, a hot chick he picked up at a bar, straddled him and leaned forward.

Shoutarou moaned softly as her slender fingers ran through his brown hair. She slowly brought her lips closer to his own. A little more... almost...

Strange, he felt something tickling his nose. Shoutarou wriggled his hand free and brought it up to his face to scratch the itch...

_SPLAT_

The detective woke up to a faceful of shaving cream. Oh. It was just another dream. Shoutarou sighed.

Wait a minute.

Shoutarou bolted straight up and looked around for the one who pranked him. The door to the hanger was left ajar. The culprit must be in there. He wiped the cream off his face with a paper towel before stomping towards the hanger, cursing under his breath.

As he opened the door, he was suddenly drenched in cold water.

His first reflex was to scream.

His second was to curse the pail which had fallen on his head.

His third was to scan the room for the only person in the agency who could have done this: Philip.

Said person was crouching below the platforms, giggling softly as his plan unfolded. This should teach his partner to ignore his warnings.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), Shoutarou spotted the teenager and quickly strode over to confront him.

Upon seeing this, Philip quickly punched the 'Enter' button on his Stagphone, activating the RevolGarry and thus trapping Shoutarou within the tank.

"OI PHILIP! This isn't funny! Let me out now!"

"See you, Shoutarou!" Philip patted the RevolGarry and left the room. But he took pity on Shoutarou and messaged him the possible codes to command the RevolGarry to open. Now all the detective had to do was to figure out which one was the correct code.

After 10 minutes of trial-and-error, Shoutarou finally escaped the metallic prison. During his imprisonment, he finally discovered the reason why Philip was pulling all these pranks; it was April Fool's Day.

"2 can play in this game, partner..." Shoutarou smirked evilly.

**A few hours later...**

After an afternoon of pranking Fuuto citizens with Watcherman and Santa-chan, Philip reluctantly returned to the Narumi Detective Agency. Afterall, he had research to complete.

Upon his return, he saw Shoutarou at the coffee table, drinking a cup of bland coffee.

"Philip, you must be tired. Have some coffee."

Something seemed... off about Shoutarou. He seemed way too cheerful for someone who had just been pranked. Nonetheless, Philip decided to have coffee. He would need the caffeine for later anyway.

The moment he picked up the cup of coffee (which was disposable), coffee dripped through a tiny hole at the bottom, staining his clothes.

Shoutarou acted immediately, grabbing a paper towel and trying to dry his signature parka (which, despite being available at all Windscale outlets in Fuuto, seemed to only be worn by Philip alone).

"Ah, the stain's not coming off. Maybe you should take a shower."

Philip eyed Shoutarou suspiciously as he grabbed a fresh set of clothes from his drawer and entered the bathroom.

After the shower, Philip emerged from the shower, only to find that his clothes, his towel and even the floor mat were missing. He tried to open the door, only to find that it was locked. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the doorknobs had been reversed and locked from the outside.

Sighing, he lowered the cover of the toilet seat and sulked, not in the mood to do any research to occupy himself.

An agonising 15 minutes later, a click was heard, an indication that the door was finally unlocked. Philip slowly opened the door and found his towel on the floor. He stepped forward and tried to pick it up, but just before he could grab it, the towel _moved_. Philip scrambled after it to the main office, trying to cover himself up before anyone saw him.

"Hah! Gotcha!" Philip cried triumphly when he finally caught the towel. As luck would have it, Akiko returned from her trip and at the same time, a bright flash went off above him.

"AHHHHH!!!! Philip-kun, what are you doing!?" Akiko waved her green slipper threateningly. Nearby, Shoutarou was laughing at his partner's plight as he was chased around the entire agency by the chief, desperately trying to cover himself up with the towel as he did. The Batshot hovered around him, watching the commotion.

"Yeah, this should teach that boy a lesson."


	3. Ryu: Interrogated by Akiko

Ah, another short chapter, inspired by a prompt. It's actually part of a story trade between me and one of my 2 BFFs. She's written hers, go check it out!

Here's the prompt from Icepath (aka KamenRiderKoori).

_Stars, on Ryu and Akiko_

Ice-chan, I know this isn't what you expected, but I hope you like it! ^^;;

Completed in: 30 minutes

**Disclaimer: If I owned Kamen Rider, I would remove all traces of Saban's Masked Rider except for the I AM AMAZON! clips.**

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Another lazy afternoon at the Narumi Detective Agency. Philip and Shoutarou were in the hanger researching the different types of beetles. Or rather, Philip was. Shoutarou was merely there to get away from Akiko for a moment.

This left Akiko and Ryu in the main office. Together. This can't end well.

"Hey, Ryu-kun?" Akiko asked as she fiddled with the Fuuto-kun keychain on Shoutarou's desk.

Ryu looked up from reading Shoutarou's past reports. "What?"

"Why do you like motorcycles so much?"

"Don't ask me questions." He took a sip from his cup of coffee (which he brewed himself) and resumed his reading.

"Come on, you can tell me! I won't tell anyone else!" Akiko pleaded.

"Whatever."

"... So? Aren't you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

Now Akiko was tugging on the sleeve of his favourite red jacket. He tried to shrug her hand off, but to no avail.

"Stop it," he snapped in annoyance.

"Aw, come on, Ryu-kun!"

"I'm not authorised to reveal that information to the general public."

(SLAP)

The self-proclaimed Kamen Rider-in-training groaned as his head throbbed, more so from the annoying headache than from the Chief's slipper slap. Still, stars were spinning around his head from the impact of the green slipper.

"If I told you, I'll have to kill you," he growled. He needed aspirin.

"That line's so overused! Come on, spill it already!"

Ryu sighed. Once the girl set her mind on a task, she wouldn't quit until she got what she wanted. Perhaps she'd stop shaking him if he simply relented.

"Fine."

He scanned the room for any listening or recording devices. There didn't seem to be anything of that sort, so he proceeded.

"I just like motorcycles. They're much better as personal transport than cars. Satisfied?"

Akiko crossed her arms and fixed Ryu a bored look. Nope. Not satisfied.

"Then why do you turn into a motorcycle? Don't you already have that Ducati whatever bike?"

"That's not made to withstand the kind of treatment Hidari's HardBoilder was designed to."

"Then why don't you just get another bike?"

"Stop asking me questions! Shroud made the Accel system!"

Silence.

"... You requested a motorbike motif for your system, didn't you? It's in your favourite colour too!"

Ryu slammed his cup of coffee in frustration. He really needed that aspirin now.

"Go ask Shroud yourself." With that, he left the office.

Akiko stood in the middle of the office, stunned. As if on cue, Shoutarou emerged from the hanger, yawning.

"Oh, Akiko. Where's Terui?"

Philip's head popped out from behind the door.

"Aki-chan, did you get into an argument with Terui Ryu?"

Akiko turned her head to face the researcher.

"Philip-kun! Can you contact Shroud? I have a couple of questions for her!"


	4. W: Trapped

Yay! My exams are over! But that was only the beginning...

Anyway, this idea kept bugging me throughout the whole exam period. What if W couldn't de-henshin? The moment my exams were over, I closed myself in this air-conditioned room and began typing...

_Time taken: 5 hours, spread across a span of 5 days._

_Current music: Hit on Groove May 16_

Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: If I owned Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider console games would be translated to English and be readily available outside Japan.**

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A rather satisfying explosion sent a small shockwave cutting through the air. The former Dopant collapsed to the ground, his shattered Gaia Memory smoking nearby. W, in his Extreme form, got up from his pose and looked back at the criminal.

"Looks like another one's going behind bars."

Philip chuckled, bringing his hand up to his face. "Don't they all?"

"You've got a point there, partner. Great work." Shoutarou lifted a hand to the W Driver and pushed the left arm of the device. Nothing happened.

"Shoutarou, is something the matter?"

Shoutarou tried again, but to no avail. "The driver won't budge."

W's right hand gave a few firm tugs of the arms of the W Driver. True enough, it refused to move from its current position. The Extreme Memory was locked in place.

"Hmm, that's strange. The Extreme Memory should have ejected by now."

"So, any ideas how to remove it?" Shoutarou asked. Philip was the genius between the 2 of them; he ought to have a few clever ideas.

"I'm researching that now."

Philip browsed through the Planet Bookshelves. A few options present themselves.

"I've completed the research."

"That was fast. You only took 3 seconds this time. Did you upgrade your RAM?" Shoutarou joked.

Philip ignored Shoutarou's comment and continued. "Let's try option 1: force the driver to close."

The detective gulped. Somehow, he had a bad feeling about this. "How?"

"First, we'll need a crowbar, some bubblegum and rubber bands." Through the bond, Shoutarou saw Philip's grin. That berserker expression of Philip's was never good news.

Shoutarou mentally stared in disbelief at Philip through their bond. "I don't get it."

"It's simple. I figured if we attach elastic materials to both sides of the driver, the arms would be under tension, forcing them to possibly snap together." Philip explained as if it were supposed to make sense.

"But why bubblegum?"

"It's elastic."

"And the crowbar..."

"In case the Extreme Memory still doesn't eject, we'll pry it apart from the W Driver."

Shoutarou groaned. If they didn't find a way to reverse the transformation, he'd be stuck to this maniac forever. "For a genius kid with all the knowledge in the world, you've got strange ideas. What other options do we have?"

"Option 2: make the Extreme Memory eject itself."

Shoutarou sighed in relief. At least this one didn't sound as bad as the previous suggestion. Besides, the Extreme Memory usually ejected by itself. "That sounds much more plausible. Alright, so what do we do?"

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At the top of Fuuto Tower...**

"Philip, please don't tell me you're going to do what I think you're going to do."

"I believe your guess is correct. By sustaining sufficient damage, the memory might be forcefully ejected."

"But falling from this height!"

"Don't worry, Shoutarou. According to my calculations, W should be able to survive the impact."

"You've had strange ideas before, but this is RIDICULOUS!" His last word was drawn out as W (or rather Philip's half) stepped off the top of the city's iconic landmark. The black, white and green knight plummeted towards the concrete ground below.

A loud thud was heard as citizens of the windy city saw a blur of colours collide with the ground, bringing up a cloud of dust. Due to the weight of the Kamen Rider's additional armour, a miniature crater formed below the warrior.

A young boy slowly approached the strangely attired man in the crater despite his mother's warnings. He whipped out his toy phone and rotated half of the phone, revealing a plastic calligraphy brush tip. He then proceeded to poke the man on his side.

To his surprise, the man stirred, waving his left hand while trying to climb out of the small crater he had created.

"Little boy, please stop that." Shoutarou groaned in misery. True enough, the extra armour the Extreme form granted had absorbed most of the impact. However, this didn't mean the users of the W system would be able to escape injuries.

A red figure appeared before them. Through the red bug-like eyes of W, Shoutarou saw a familiar face.

"Terui, go away." Shoutarou muttered.

Ryu sighed, before shooing the curious onlookers (and the little boy) away with his police badge in hand. He returned to W, who finally recovered from the shock of the fall.

"What did you think you were doing, Hidari?"

"Don't ask me, ask the guy I'm stuck to like a Siamese twin."

"Philip? What's the meaning of this?"

W shook his head lightly to dislodge some concrete debris from his head fins. "We can't undo the transformation, so we tried to weaken ourselves to remove it."

Ryu paced around the crater. "Perhaps you need to sustain a different kind of damage."

"Or maybe we can just jump off a higher structure." Shoutarou said sarcastically.

"Tempting suggestion, Shoutarou, but I've got a better idea. I'll need Terui Ryu's cooperation for this to work, though."

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Ryu prepared his Engine Blade.

"Are you sure this will work, Philip?" He asked from behind his red helmet.

"In theory, yes. Receiving damage from a Memory might provide the right conditions for the transformation to reverse itself."

"You're kidding, right? We're about to be blasted by a giant 'A'!" Shoutarou exclaimed.

Philip shrugged and simply turned W to face Accel.

"Terui Ryu, we're ready when you are."

Shoutarou grumbled. "Speak for yourself, research freak..."

Ryu activated his Gaia Memory.

"ENGINE!"

Shaking his head, the crimson Kamen Rider slashed the air, creating streaks of energy in the shape of an 'A'. He sent it forward, hitting W straight on. The tri-coloured Rider staggered back, but emerged relatively unhurt and unchanged.

"That was a big failure." Shoutarou groaned in pain.

"It's getting late, Hidari. I have to return to the station. Maybe you should retire to the agency first." Ryu suggested, undoing his transformation as he walked back to his motorcycle.

W watched as Ryu rode off. Shoutarou tried to stifle a yawn, but failed. This, however, gave Philip another idea.

"That's it, Shoutarou!" W's right hand snapped its fingers.

"That's what?" Shoutarou asked wearily, hand hovering over his currently non-existant mouth.

"Option 3: use up all of W's energy."

"What did that have to do with my yawn?"

Philip simply smirked as he led W back to the HardBoilder.

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**At the Narumi Detective Agency:**

"Tadaima, Aki-chan." Philip called out of habit.

"Okaeri, Philip-kun." Akiko replied without looking up from her laptop screen.

"Aki-chan, where do you keep the exercise equipment?"

Akiko paused her video briefly and pointed at the storeroom. "Everything's in there."

"Thank you." W walked toward the storeroom.

From the corner of her eye, Akiko noticed something odd.

"Philip-kun, you weren't wearing green, white or black when you went out earlier, were you?"

She glanced up and screamed upon seeing W in all of his tri-coloured glory.

"W-WHAT IS THIS!"

"Calm down, Akiko. We're just having a few technical problems for now," Shoutarou replied as W entered the pitch-black storeroom.

Digging around a messy storeroom was never an easy task, especially after the lamp above had blown long ago. "We've really got to change the lightbulb one day."

Philip paused. Wait a minute.

"Shoutarou, keep talking."

"Hah? Okay... how many Akikos does it take to change a lightbulb?" As Shoutarou spoke, the room was briefly illuminated by W's left eye. It wasn't much, but it would do, thought Philip.

"How many?" W tossed an old chair out of the door, narrowly missing the coffee table.

"3. 1 to smash the lightbulb with her slipper, 1 to order others to clean it up and 1 to order others to replace it!" Shoutarou broke out into laughter.

"I don't get it." Philip deadpanned.

(ahem) "Nevermind."

Eventually, they found what they had been searching for.

"Alright, let's go!"

W put on the headband, wristbands and slung a towel over his shoulder. He started jogging on the spot, creating small tremors as he did.

"We'll be out for a bit, Aki-chan." Philip called out as W jogged down the stairs.

Akiko watched as W exited the agency, then shrugged and returned to watching her drama.

Meanwhile, W had begun jogging along Fuuto's quiet streets.

"Hey Philip."

"Hmm?"

"Why do we even need these?" Shoutarou gestured at the bands and towel.

"It's important to have the right mindset while exercising." Philip simply replied, as if he were reading out of a book. In fact, that could have been exactly what he was doing that moment.

As W continued his jog, pedestrians watched as the surreal scene took place. Who would have guessed even Kamen Rider needed to keep himself fit?

The boy from earlier tugged at his mother's shirt. "Mommy, look! It's that strange man!"

His mother could only gape as she watched the city's protector ran past them, sporting accessories which didn't seem to belong there.

Eventually, the duo Kamen Rider slowed to a stop, panting heavily. "This isn't working, Philip."

"Hmm... we're out of breath, yet we still have energy to continue. I believe the Extreme Memory is fueling us with the extra energy."

"So what now?" Shoutarou asked, frustrated. It's been nearly 5 hours since they transformed into Cyclone Joker Extreme. As much as he liked the extra power the W system offered, he really wanted his own freedom again.

"There's one last option we have: Sleep."

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"I think Akiko's asleep." Shoutarou noted as they quietly snuck into the agency. The lights were out and there was a lack of mayhem which usually followed Akiko whereever she went.

"Good. Now we just have to sleep." W shed his band and haphazardly threw the towel away.

"Good night, Shoutarou."

"Good night, partner."

Minutes passed.

"Philip?"

"Hmm?"

"I can't sleep."

"Then perhaps this will help." Philip grabbed his Stag Phone and played a song.

"Ah, Naturally healing edit. How soothing..." Within moments, Shoutarou fell asleep. Shortly after, Philip joined him in dreamland.

The next morning, Shoutarou woke up to a strange sensation. The surface below him didn't feel very comfortable or soft.

"Shoutarou, could you get off me please? You're much heavier than I am..."

Startled, Shoutarou rolled off his partner, crashing into the floor.

"Well, looks like it worked." Philip sat up, checking that everything was in order.

Shoutarou brushed some dust off his vest as he stood up. "Yeah, but why?"

"Perhaps sleeping fools the Extreme Memory into thinking we're unconscious and automatically ejects it."

"That was an interesting sight, Shoutarou-kun. This is definitely going on 4chan!" Akiko teasingly waved the Bat Shot around. On its tiny display was a gallery of photos presumably taken throughout the night, while the 2 males had been sleeping on the same bed after reverting back to their human selves.

"Why you..."

As Shoutarou chased Akiko around the agency, Philip simply poured a cup of coffee and watched as they hit each other with Akiko's slipper.

"Those two would make the perfect couple," he remarked as he took a sip of his coffee.

"Hmm... tastes like instant coffee."


	5. Philip: Phone

Hi minna-san! I'm finally back from hiatus and will be posting (hopefully) more regularly from now on! To start things off, here's a short fic for Prompt Challenge #1 over at the Hikari Photo Studio community on LiveJournal! The community is managed by myself and Icepath, also known to some of you as KamenRiderKoori. Please visit it if you have the chance!

The address is here: community(dot)livejournal(dot)com/ridevendor

Right, back to what I was saying before the shameless plugging above, I hope you enjoy this one! I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I think it's okay, don't you?

Prompt #2: An unwanted phone call

**Disclaimer: If I owned Kamen Rider, W would have gotten another episode for the finale.**

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A day in the Narumi Detective Agency was normally anything but quiet. Today wasn't an exception, either. Though there wasn't any ongoing banters between the lead detective and his chief, Philip still couldn't concentrate.

"Can someone please pick up the phone?" He moaned as the black rotary dial phone rang. He may have been hiding in the back room as usual, but the sound was shrill enough to penetrate through the wooden door and echo throughout the room. Unfortunately, no one else was in the office at the moment, so the researcher finally gave in and exited the back room to answer the phone himself.

"Hello, this is the Narumi Det-"

"Good morning, sir," the person on the other end spoke in perfect English.

'Morning?' He thought. Glancing out of the window, he saw the Sun high up in the sky, which suggested an estimated local time of... 2:00pm in the afternoon. He shrugged the strange statement off as human error and waited for the person to continue.

"I am calling on the behalf of Sunhub to do a survery. May I request that you spare a few minutes to take the survey?"

"Erm, sure." Philip mentally switched his spoken language to English. Whatever 'Sunhub' was, he was sure it wouldn't hurt to do a survey. He shut his eyes to perform a lookup, whist still holding the phone receiver to his ear.

"May I have your name, sir?"

"Philip."

"Are you using any of our services?"

"Services? I don't think so."

"Are you interested in using any of our services?"

Philip quickly looked up the services by Sunhub. Broadband and phone lines... "They seem compelling."

"May I have your address and contact number?"

Philip gave the requested information, before the person hung up with a quick "Thank you". He stared at the black receiver, before setting it down and continuing his research on this 'Sunhub'.

"Sunhub... a telecommunications company?"

A few days later, the phone rang again.

"At last, a case!" Shoutarou hurriedly picked up the phone, wanting to end the drought of jobs. "This is the Narumi Detective Agency. How may I help you?"

A moment's silence was heard, Akiko hovering nearby in anxiety. Eventually, Shoutarou's expression grew sour. "Wrong number!" He barked into the receiver, before slamming it down.

"PHILIP!" The detective shouted for his partner, who emerged from the back room.

"What is it, Shoutarou?"

"Did you give our information to some telecom company?"

The clueless teenager nodded. "A man called 3 days ago from Sunhub..."

"AH MOU! Now we'll be getting these calls" Shoutarou groaned. "Listen Philip, I'm going to request a block on this foreign number to the agency phone. Until then, don't answer the phone!"

Philip nodded, still unaware of what he had done.

This quickly changed, however, when the phone rang again after Shoutarou had left for their phone service provider's customer service office.

"Shoutarou told me not to answer the phone, but I can't concentrate on my research!" He tried to drown out the ringing noise by turning on the radio, but it didn't work. He simply tried to ignore the sound by focusing solely on his research, to varying degrees of success.

This went on for about an hour, before the phone finally fell silent for more than 5 minutes. Instead, another ringtone - his StagPhone's - sounded. Throughly frustrated, he punched the 'answer' button and shouted "WHAT!"

"Oi Philip, what was that for!" An annoyed Shoutarou shouted back.

"Oh, Shoutarou. I'm sorry, it's just that the agency phone's been ringing for a long time and I haven't been able to do anything productive..."

"It's alright, Philip. The ban's in place now, so the phone shouldn't ring. But next time, if anyone asks you to do a survey through the phone, ignore them!"

After a quick apology, Philip hung up. Not too long after though, the agency phone rang for what could have been the eleventh time that hour. Philip marched out of the back room and answered the phone irritatedly.

"Narumi Detective Agency. If this is another survey, please hang up."


End file.
